[This diary was originally posted to Daily Kos on August 25, 2006.]

The Bay Scallop (Aequipenctin irradians) is a Molluscan maverick. The species has succeeded by breaking or bending the rules of bivalvery at almost every turn. Think Han Solo, Zaphod Beeblebrox and Captain Hilts from "The Great Escape" all stuffed between two calcareous shells.

The shells are identical (actually mirror images of one another) except for the color. The top shell is darker, often with bands of alternating brown and cream. The bottom shell is white. Both shells are strongly ribbed, with up to twenty raised lines radiating from the base. Scallops cannot dig as clams do, so the dark top shell helps it to camouflage as it sits on the dark, muddy bottom. Weeds and sponges grow on it as well, completing its disguise.

Those of us who are into science fiction (readers of Heinlein, e.g.) have known about this idea of "powered exoskeletons" for a while. If you've seen the Aliens movies, you know what I mean - that walking forklift, right?

If you're not familiar with the concept, here's what it is: basically, the wearer straps machinery onto his body that responds to movements by applying its power to strengthening them. If you have power steering in your car, or power brakes, that's a simplified version of what I mean.

Well, it turns out that there are projects to turn the maniacal dreams of super-soldiers into... well, not quite reality, because they don't look like they'd make good weapons, but they're interesting. More below.

You can find more posts on climate change science, policy, and news on Climate 411.
 

Just out in Nature today, scientists have assembled an 800,000 year record of CO2, methane and temperature. It looks like we need to revise our talking points a bit about greenhouse gases...

Once again, if you missed the first three in this series they will be linked at the end.  I am reviewing Dorion Sagan's book Notes from the Holocene {A brief History of the Future} with a lot of material thrown in from my own probing into these same issues.  One of the influences behind my world view is the late Robert Rosen whose bibliography is  listed on the VCU Complexity Research Group's Website.  I encourage you to take a minute to click on the "bibliography" link because you will get a jolt from doing so.  Most of you will never have heard of Rosen yet here is this vast amount of very exciting work about biology, life, etc. that began over a half century ago. It seems clear from Sagan's writing that he also was not aware of Rosen's work and that is a shame for he would have benefitted from it greatly.  The best we can have is to look at them side by side and make our own synthesis.  That is what we will do beneath the break

After all of the bad news I have had to write about the United Methodist Church General Conference’s failure to change its homophobic policies, I am pleased to be able to report some good from that just concluded once-every-four-year legislative conference.

The General Conference overwhelmingly approved the Clergy Letters Project, an endeavor to demonstrate that science and faith can be compatible without compromising either. The letter that thousands of clergy have signed say

We the undersigned, ...believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as "one theory among others" is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children.

The UMC is urging its clergy to participate. But that is not all.

Recently, the Federal powers that be have taken steps to expand the scope and sharpen the focus of the National Nanotechnology Initiative.  This is certainly good news, as one of the main criticisms of the US NNI grant process is that it lacks specific focus in narrowing its scope and definition of research initiatives. This is especially true with regard to how nanoparticles and nanoproducts may interact with molecular biology and the environment. However, industry is already taking products to market at an alarming pace, and I dare say that due diligence has largely been cast by the wayside in efforts to externalize costs.

So, lets talk about risk shall we?

OK, my first diary.  Someone may cover this soon, but I am just so sick of these "intelligent design" idiots.
Once again a couple of people that do not understand biology, chemistry, history, etc, are trying to get equal time for creationism or to just not teach evolution in science class.

I am going to print and mail them a copy of the "Open Letter To Kansas School Board", regarding His noodly appendage and demanding equal billing.

Anyone gone up against the school board before? Suggestions would be appreciated in the comments.

For those who are just joining this discussion of the Earth system, we are using Dorion Sagan's book:Notes from the Holocene  {A Brief History of the Future}  I will add links to the first two installments beneath the fold. The ideas about the Earth system that Sagan puts forward are neither new nor widely accepted (yet?).  I like them because they fit in nicely with the world view I have been developing using modern complexity science as my basis.  I also like them because I am pessimistic about other, well meaning, approaches that are confined to the rules of the scientific narrative which has been totally framed to keep new ideas from entering the discussion.  Under their rules, anyone with scientific "credentials" is to be listened to no matter what their hidden agenda is.  We know what the result of that scenareo has been and it is time to move forward; which brings us to the topic of this installment, the role of us humans in all this.  Come with me below the break and we shall proceed.

Happy Mothers Day to all the moms who are reading this.  As for all the rest of us, including the moms who are daughters of still-living moms, call your mother today.  I know I will be!

Welcome back to Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday, in which I present a sampling of this week's science news and the readers celebrate science, space, and the environment.

First up, the New York Times slideshow reviewing this week in science.

Mouse Lemurs and a Satellite View of a Flood

Also depicted--carbon beads from an asteroid impact, a microscopic fungus, missing ordinary matter in space, an erupting Chilean volcano from space, and great tits (the birds) in England.

More on these and other science stories after the jump.

This series is stimulated by Dorion Sagan's book Notes from the Holocene {A Brief History of the Future}  The first of the series My first Eco-diary:  The earth is Alive? stirred up some calls for more so here it is.  I've provided the link for those who missed the first installment and I'll also make this as self contained as possible.  For the more rigid scientific types, Sagan has the following warning

WARNING: This book contains wild speculations:
READ AT YOUR OWN RISK*

*This statement has not been verified by the FDA, MDA, USDA, APA, DEA, GSA, CIA, NSA, AA, AAA, or AAAA

 Let us look a little further into this man's very innovative mind.  Again, we are here to try out some ideas not to cull through data.

Hello Kossacks.  On a few occasions I have posted comments within DailyKos threads related to science education that I had created an MCAT course over the past fifteen years which I was releasing as a Creative Commons work.  In the dozen or so replies to these comments individuals nobody seemed to think it would be too self promotional for me to create syllabus diaries for the modules and post the videos an independent school and I are creating from our live course in Atlanta.  I am a Kossack with a three digit user ID.  The videos would be appearing every other week on Science Friday.  

Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-Denver) will participate in a live 30-minute Q&A with Colorado Confidential readers on Friday, May 9 at 11 a.m. MDT.

DeGette will take your questions on the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, her third attempt to pass this landmark legislation following two vetoes by President Bush.

Read the congresswoman's comments from her dKos diary posted yesterday below the fold.

This will necessarily be brief. Colbert just interviewed an astronaut on the space station.  It was fantastic!  I can't figure out who was more thrilled the astronaut (complete with Wriststrong bracelet) or Colbert. It is my belief that this is something which is great for our understanding of our scientific endeavours.  The American public will support science more vehemently if they have more exposure to it. Any ideas?

The concept of using sound as a weapon is pretty old. I would say it goes back (at least) to the legend of the Israelites' attack on Jericho, where the priests were ordered to blow trumpets, and the soldiers to shout at the top of their lungs, and thus (according to the legend) did the walls crumble. Now, Erich von Daniken claimed this as evidence of the presence of aliens with sonic weaponry, but he said that everything was evidence of aliens, so never mind him. I think it's just a neat legend.

But it starts a long history of the idea. Sound as a weapon. Wow. Use not only the lightning but also the thunder.

So I will talk about that today.

There has been a lot of buzz in the news about a genome project decoding the genes of the Platypus. (There's been a lot of really bad science writing too, horrendously characterizing platypus genes as part reptile, part bird, and part mammal.)

There are many interesting things that we can learn from the platypus about our own history. Most importantly, the platypus genome provides conclusive genetic proof that the three subclasses  of mammals (the Prototheria, Metatheria, and Eutheria) are the product of evolution and not special creation. Animals that first lay hard shelled eggs (amniotes) developed genes that permit the production of vitellogenin, the principle protein of egg yolk. This is critical for the development of young inside a shelled egg - if the young are to grow inside a closed system, that system must have food. In mammals, yolk became less and less important as first milk evolved, and then among marsupials and placentals, live birth.

This week, during a slight detour in my regular bleeding edge science reading gauntlet, I happened to come across the article America's Chemically Altered 21st Century Soldiers by Clayton Dach.  Its a pretty interesting read, considering the ever spanning scientific interests of DARPA, contemporary genomics, and the ever sharpening precision vectors of targeted drug delivery.

Time for another scan across news and links that show a society still in motion... reminding us that we can keep the Great Experiment going, whether or not the politicians step in to save us...

Still, let's start with a glimpse of what the other side has in mind for us.
Stefan Jones saw the "comedian" Ben Stein, whose humor-schtick is to act as tediously dull as possible, promoting his sick new "documentary" Expelled.  From the interview on Trinity Broadcasting:

Stein: When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers [i.e. biologist P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed ... that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you.

Crouch: That’s right.

If this enrages or interests you, read on... and see how the Enlightenment fights back...

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The revelation that an Austrian man held his own daughter captive in a dungeon for 24 years, raping and beating her the entire time and forcing her to bear seven children by him got me thinking about the idea of hell.

Police in Austria say Josef Fritzl may have planned the dungeon in which he incarcerated his daughter Elisabeth as early as 1978 - when she was 12.

Hell is commonly conceived of as uncannily similar to the life this captive woman had, except that it lasts forever instead of 24 years. And people go there not because a sick monster puts them there, but because a supposedly loving God, creator of the Universe, puts them there for not believing that a guy who lived in Palestine about 2000 years ago is his son and also part of a 3-way God creature with him.